This completely hidden, custom-fit hitch installs behind your vehicle's rear bumper so that the cross tube is always out of sight. Receiver easily removes when not in use. Aluminum and steel alloy construction is durable and eco-friendly.

How to Install the EcoHitch Stealth Trailer Hitch on a 2018 Tesla Model 3

Speaker 1: Today on our 2018 Tesla Model 3 you're going to be taking a look at, I'm going to show you how to install the EcoHitch Two-Inch Stealth Trailer Hitch Receiver, part number 306-X7373. This is what our hitch looks like when it's installed. It's going to offer you a two inch by two inch receiver opening. Hitch pin hole is going to be 5/8 an inch in diameter. It's going to take a standard 5/8-inch hitch pin. A hitch pin does not come with your kit.

However, you can find one on our website using part number PC3.The hitch is going to be constructed of recycled materials, aluminum, steel, and stainless steel. It's going to have a black powder coat finish, so it's going to resist any rust or corrosion. One thing that's really great about this hitch is not only the way it looks now where the only thing showing is the receiver tube, but this receiver tube is actually removable. When you take this off, you see nothing. You can have the nice, clean look of the vehicle.

As you can see, it's completely hidden behind our bumper fascia to maintain a nice, clean look.When you're ready to use it, you just slide your receiver tube and install your bolt. Once you have your bolt installed, tighten it down. You're ready to load up your favorite accessories, and you can see our safety chain hookups are going to be up inside here. One thing I do want to mention is in the instructions, they're going to tell you you have two options: a three-inch hole saw bit or a four-inch. If you use a three-inch, you can see that these are kind of hard to get to.

As a matter of fact, on the other side of this hitch, you would have to open that hole up. So, I would suggest using a four-inch hole saw bit if you're going to be towing a trailer at all to make sure that you're able to get to those.Now, with the EcoHitch, this is another accessory that you can pick up. It's called the Undercover Access Hole Cover, and it's part number 306-XA2002. What this is going to do is for that EcoHitch, when you remove that receiver tube, this is going to go in place of that to give you that nice, clean look and maintain the aerodynamics of the vehicle. It's also going to have a rubber seal.

That's going to seal to keep dirt and debris from getting up inside of your receiver tube. Now how this stays on, it's magnetic. There's a large magnet here that's going to slide up inside the receiver tube to hold it in place.This cutout here is going to face the front of the vehicle. This arrow is going to face the driver's side. The magnet is going to slide up on the passenger's side inside of the receiver tube here, just like that, and slide it into place. When you're ready to add your receiver, simply pull it out, add your receiver, and then your bolt, and you're ready to go. Now you're going to have a 200 pound max tongue weight, which is amount of pressure on the inside of the receiver tube, and it's 2,000 pound max trailer weight, which is the trailer plus load included. I do recommend consulting with the owner's manual or the manufacturer to make sure the vehicle can withstand either one of those weights. Keep in mind that is the weight limit of the hitch, not the vehicle.As far as the installation goes, and it's pretty straight forward. Installation, I do recommend having an extra set of hands because you will have to remove the fascia, and there's a minor modification, which is going to be a hole you're going to have to make down here on the bottom for your receiver. Now let's give you a few measurements to help you with deciding on any hitch mount accessories you may need. From the center of the hitch pin hole to the outermost part of the bumper is about three inches. From the ground to the top innermost part of the receiver tube is about nine and 3/4 inches. It's a good idea to get a raised shank for better ground clearance.Now let's show you how to get this installed. To start our installation, we're going to need to remove our rear fascia. To start that, we're going to have two push pin fasteners inside of our wheel well along with one Torx bit, and we're going to have that on both sides of the vehicle. We need to remove those. To remove your push pin fasteners, take a flathead screw driver. You're going to see an open spot there. You're just going to pry out the center. You should be able to pull out the base, so make sure you get both of them together.This one here is going to be your second one. It's in a little bit more, and then we're going to have a third one that sits inside behind the tire we're going to need to remove. Next we're going to take a T20 Torx bit. You're going to have a screw for your rear fascia that's under your fender here, and it's going to be right up in the corner. I'm using a long extension to make sure that my socket wrench doesn't make contact with the car, and I'll repeat that process on the other side of the vehicle.We're going to have two tabs. You're going to have one here and one on the other side. We're going to pop the tab open. You just use a flathead screwdriver. There's a bolt here. You're going to have three across the center here, and you'll have another tab over here that has a bolt in it. Go ahead and remove all of those. We'll use a 10 millimeter socket to do that. Next we're going to come to the front part of this panel where it meets the felt. You're going to have a bolt here and a bolt here. We need to remove those first, and there's a bolt underneath this felt that we're going to need to remove. We'll use the same 10 millimeter socket.Pull our felt down. We'll need to remove our trunk rest. You're going to have one on each side of the vehicle. It sits right above the taillight. Now, these are going to twist off. If they're too tight to twist them by hand, use an adjustable wrench and a paper towel. Put it over there so it doesn't damage the plastic here. Now we're going to have our panel or sill panel here on the back. We need to remove that, and we're just going to gently pull up on it like that, and we'll set that aside.We're going to have a couple plastic push pins holding our side felt in place. You're going to have one here, and you're going to have one up on top. We'll do the same thing we did with the ones from the wheel well. We'll use a flathead screwdriver. We'll just pop out the center, and you just make sure you get the base with it, and our second one is going to be right up here. We're going to do this on both side of the vehicle. Next thing we're going to do is we're going to pull back our felt. You're going to see a wiring harness that goes into our taillight. We're going to unplug that.To unplug it, there's a little tab right here on the bottom. You're going to push that tab in. Then you can see those few prongs. They kind of pull in or pull out, and then you just pull out on them. Then we're going to have two nuts. You're going to have one here and one here. We're going to use an eight millimeter socket to remove those. Then we're going to remove the taillight. You want to be careful when you're popping these off that you don't break the plastic tabs that are holding it in place. They have a couple plastic tabs here. You don't want to break them and you don't want to mess with the prongs that are holding it in place.Next we're going to have two more bolts we need to remove. We're going to have one on each side that sitting underneath the taillight house or inside the taillight housing. 10 millimeter socket. Go on and remove both of those. Now we're going to remove our fascia. It's a good idea to have a second person. Have one person on one side and one on the other. We're going to start at the wheel wells. Then we're going to work our way to the center. Keep in mind if you have sensors inside your fascia, there's going to be wiring running there. So when you get your fascia loose, don't just pull it off. You want to make sure you unplug any necessary wires you need to unplug so you don't mess up the connections.On our passenger's side, you can see a plug that's going to our sensors. We're going to go ahead and remove that plug. You'll see a gray tab there. We're going to pull that up just like that. Push here and pull out. Then we'll set our fascia aside. Next we'll take a 15 millimeter socket. We're going to remove the three nuts holding on our crash support beam. We're going to do this on both sides. We're going to pull this off and we're going to set it side for now. Next thing we're going to do is we're going to remove our bumper support. Before doing that, we're going to have to remove this plastic bar here.We're going to use a 10 millimeter socket. We're going to have three nuts that go . Actually, four. We're going to have one here, here. There are five of them, and once we pull this off, we're going to take it and we're just going to flip it up inside the trunk. It looks like we're going to have to pop out this plug. We use a trim panel tool or a flathead screwdriver if you have one. We'll let that hang and we're going to take this and just set it up inside the trunk like that. Once you have these loose, you can use a 15 millimeter socket. You can go ahead and remove that bracket.Next we'll take a flathead screwdriver. We're going to pop these caps off. They may be stuck to the body of the vehicle because they're going to have some epoxy around it that helps seal it. Now we'll take a putty knife and we're going to scrape off this excess epoxy. Next we're going to have some nylon washers in our kit. You're going to put one on each of our bolts here. You want to make sure you do that on both sides. Next we're going to put our hitch in place and we're going to slide it over the studs just like that, and then we'll reinstall our nuts, or the four outside nuts holding our hitch to the body of the vehicle.We want to center our hitch. I'm going to use this center piece here on the body and center it right in the center of where my receiver tube is. After you get it centered, you're going to tighten the four nuts on each side, and then you're going to torque them to the specifications in the instructions. We're going to have six nylon washers remaining. We're going to put them on the three studs on each side of our hitch, just like that. Then we'll reinstall our crash support beam. What I found is that our bolts on our hitch are just a little bit wider than the bolt pattern here. This won't quite slide on there.So, what I'm doing is I'm taking a grinding bit like this. I'm just grinding this back just a little bit, just enough to get the other side on. Once you have your crash support beam back in place, reinstall your nuts. Go ahead and tighten them down, and then torque them to the specifications in the instructions. Once you're done with that, we're going to put our fascia clip bracket back in place like that. Then we'll reinstall the screws. The next thing we're going to do is this bottom panel on our fascia, this center rib that runs right here, we need to measure from this edge 26 and 3/4 inches. When it says 3/4, we'll go ahead and mark that spot.Then what we want to do is 3/4 of an inch to the driver's side. We want to go 2 and 1/4 to the passenger's side. Now, we're going to have two options. You can use a three-inch hole saw or you can use a four-inch hole saw. What we're going to do is we're going to use our mark as our center and we're going to make our circle with our three or four-inch hole saw on both sides, and then we're going to cut out the excess in the center of that. That's going to give us an oval shape. Now, I'm going to start with a three-inch hole saw bit. If you want more hand room, then this measurement from the center up to here is actually going to be . or from the center of that to here is only going to be 26 and 1/2, not 26 and 3/4. Just make sure whichever one you use, you use the right measurement.Now I'm going to take a Dremel tool with a cutting blade. You can use a utility knife. This bottom plastic is pretty thick, so it may take a little bit to get through. I've already marked my line. I want to cut out this center triangle section so this is a complete oval. Before we put our fascia back in place, we're going to have to remove our receiver tube. There's a large bolt on the side. We'll use a 24 millimeter socket. Go ahead and remove that bolt and we'll just slide this out. Once you have your fascia trimmed, go ahead and test it.What you want to make sure is that this receiver part right here is off to the left side of that hole, that hole that we just cut into the bottom of the bumper fascia. You've got to remember you've got to put the bolt in once you put the receiver tube in. Once you have done that, everything is lining up correctly, go ahead and put your fascia back in place in the reverse order from the way you took it off. Once you put your receiver back in place, the bolt that you put in, you want to make sure that you torque that to the specifications in the instructions, and you're going to need to do that any time you take it out and put it back in or reinstall it. That'll do it for a look at and installation on EcoHitch Two-Inch Hitch Stealth Trailer Hitch Receiver, part number 306-X7373 on our 2018 Tesla Model 3.

Yes, I would like an email notification if someone replies to my comment?

Info for this part was:

Video Edited:

Chris R

Test Fit:

Shane H

Video by:

Jonathan Y

At etrailer.com we provide the best information available about the products we sell. We take the quality of our information seriously so that you can get the right part the first time. Let us know if anything is missing or if you have any questions.